Syrian authorities in Damascus and the YPG-held Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) on Jan. 4 agreed to hold more meetings after a meeting on integrating the SDF’s forces into the central government.
Syrian President Ahmad al-Sharaa signed a deal in March with SDF leader Mazloum Abdi to merge the civil and military institutions of the Kurds' semi-autonomous administration into the government by the end of 2025, but differences have held up its implementation.
The SDF said in a statement that a delegation from its leadership including Abdi met government officials in Damascus "as part of discussions related to the military integration process.”
In a later statement the SDF said the talks had concluded and details would be published later.
Damascus did not issue an official statement about the meeting.
But state television, citing a government source, reported that it "did not produce tangible results on speeding up the implementation of the agreement on the ground.”
It said the sides agreed to hold further meetings.
The SDF controls large swathes of Syria's oil-rich north and northeast, and with the support of a U.S.-led international coalition, was integral to the territorial defeat of the Islamic State group in Syria in 2019.
Its integration into the state has proven complicated since the ousting of longtime ruler Bashar al-Assad a year ago, with both sides trading accusations of obstructing efforts to implement the agreement.
Abdi has repeated calls for decentralization, which Syria's new authorities have rejected, and tensions between the SDF militant and the government have occasionally erupted into clashes, most recently in Aleppo city last month.
In December 2025, a SDF official told AFP on condition of anonymity that Damascus had proposed splitting the Kurdish-led forces into three divisions and a number of brigades, including one for women.
The forces would be deployed under SDF commanders in Kurdish-controlled areas, the official said.
Syria's Foreign Minister later said the government was studying the SDF’s response.
That same month, Abdi said that "all efforts are being made to prevent the collapse of this process" and that he considered failure unlikely.
Türkiye, an important ally of Syria's new leaders, sees the presence of SDF forces on its border as a security threat and has publicly called for them to be integrated into the state.
Last month, Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan urged the SDF to not be an obstacle to Syria's stability and warned that patience with the SDF was running out.
Türkiye, which shares a 900-kilometer (550-mile) border with Syria, has launched successive offensives to push SDF forces from its frontier.
